Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Inclusion


Jon Felipe is in an inclusive 3rd grade classroom. Last week the students worked on writing biographies. On the day they presented their reports, they also dressed up like an important person from the life of their subject. Jon Felipe really likes the Curious George books, so he wrote about the author, H. A. Rey, and dressed up like the man in the yellow hat. He was SO excited to dress up and to take his monkey to school with him.

This week the students are working in groups to do research on different countries. Jon Felipe's group is doing their project on India. He has certain pieces of information that he is responsible for providing. I love that he is included despite his learning struggles and that he is expected to participate in ways that are achievable for him. He loves going to school. He comes home everyday and tells me all about the friends he played with at recess. This is how inclusion is supposed to work!

An interesting note: The children in his class have each been assigned a number and they write that number on each of their papers. That helps when it comes time to sort and return papers. Jon Felipe doesn't just know his own number, he can tell you the number of every student in his class. Interesting.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Wishing everyone a blessed Easter.

Maria and me in our Easter duds. The boys declined to do the Easter finery thing.



Have I mentioned how much we love having George and Regina and their family living nearby? Definitely on my list of good things about living in Sioux Center!



A houseful for Easter dinner. So fun!



The annual egg rolling contest.






For the championship...



The winner!



Maria took first. Miranda got second.



Austin was the winner last year. He claimed that he used scientific analysis to plan his winning strategy. This year he got knocked out in round one.



Saturday, April 23, 2011

Coloring Eggs

Jon Felipe has been counting the days until we could color eggs. Easter is very late this year so he has had to wait a long time. He loves any opportunity to do something special and thoroughly enjoyed the process of coloring eggs. Tomorrow we celebrate the joy of Christ risen!








Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Wordless Wednesday - Snow in April?







And a few pictures of Jon Felipe with his new stuffed monkey. You can tell that he really liked this gift!












Friday, April 8, 2011

Prom 2011

Luke is attending his first prom tonight. He looks so handsome in his fancy duds. His date looks just beautiful and I love the dress she chose. I hope they have a good time together. Of course, we'll get to check in on them later. Unity has an after-prom party and Dwight and I are working the 11:30-3:30 shift. Staying up half the night is not my thing, but it sounds like the kids will have lots of fun things to do.




I hope her parents got better pictures. If they did, I'll post more later.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Beauty and the Beast

Maria was in the junior high production of Beauty and the Beast this weekend. She was the old woman who is really an enchantress and puts a curse on the beast. She was also a villager and a servant, so she got to be in all the big singing and dancing numbers. It was all great fun and she loved being involved and we loved watching it. The kids did a great job. You'd never guess they were only 7th and 8th graders!

My beautiful daughter


The enchantress Disguised as an old woman A villager
A servant singing "Be our Guest"



Thanks to everyone who helped with the production and to those who came to see it!